Simple Stupid Chronicles

What the hell is writers block?

Seriously what the hell is it? Writers who have gone through it, define it as worst than hell. As it is, a writer struggles through self-doubt, fear-of-bad-writing, laziness and a million other unimportant excuses that prevent him to write. But the consistent bastard wouldn’t just give up. He’d sit down every day and stares for long hours into the blank screen, playing the same sadistic game every day “who blinks first? the cursor or my next typed letter?”. But what happens when the writer suddenly stops writing. The words simply won’t come out. It seems as if his brain his paralyzed and he cannot form straight sentences with the intentional meaning. His thoughts are distorted, as if he has lost all syllables, pronunciations and the basic knowledge of communication. During this phase to type one word on the blank screen takes more effort than pushing the earth out of its orbit. This gut wrenching effort tires him and beats him hollow in the end. ‘I mean dude, I was born to write, how can I simply not – write. I have lost the purpose to live. I don’t what I am living for? I have successfully lived within the social framework of the society till now. I act normal in public, speak politely to elders and young ones, I even attend few obligatory social events once in a while and smile while my picture is taken. It was a simple trade-off, I’d continue to think I am fooling them, and they continue to think that I am a fool – for living the life of a writer. But now what do I do?’ In the equation of life, writing is the only constant, rest everything – family, relationships, money, fame, happiness and sorrow are all variables, they keep changing and switching places with one another. But writing has to remain constant, or the equation remains inconsistent. Yes we have all read those blogs about how to beat the writers block, and yes I am still reading it parallelly, and YES we have all read those 25 pointers by all the great writers on how to write better. But if everybody knows the answer why do we writers still fall in this same trap. Honestly none of this helps. A writers journey on his own, he alone is the captain of the ship, he is the passenger and he is alone rows the propellers against the tides with his bare hands. So nobody can really help him here, he has to find his way out from the bottom of the pit, he has dug himself into. It takes heart, it takes courage and it takes a true writer to come out of it. For unless he travels through the most unseen, unheard and unimaginable place in his head, he’d never be able to put across a fresh idea on a piece of paper. Writers block is indeed hell, and I am just beginning to get out of it. Word count 475 and still counting…